While lawmakers were ostensibly asking Dimon how to prevent the next, distant financial crisis, he was openly telling them that JP Morgan had predicted, to the tune of $100 billion, that we're hurtling towards one this year.

Let's stop and think about that: JP Morgan started the London Whale trade in late 2011 or early 2012. That's when the bank must have seen a global credit crisis coming. Dimon said in his testimony this week that JP Morgan, with $700 billion in loans, needed to "protect itself" against "a systemic event." The bank was so positive that this systemic event would occur that it was planning to make money on it.

It's not as if JP Morgan was "hedging" here - there's no question that JP Morgan was inordinately confident that the London Whale was onto something, that a global credit crisis is coming.

JP Morgan is also stubbornly clinging to the bet. Bruno Michel Iksil, the trader who was dubbed the London Whale, is still at the bank, temporarily, but there's no indication that JP Morgan is unwinding the trade. On the contrary, Dimon has publicly said in the firm's conference call that he's willing - and expects - to keep bearing the losses.

In short, JP Morgan heard 2008 rattling its chains. And on that front, the bank may not be wrong. The drumbeat of a global financial crisis is getting louder and closer; in fact, we're probably already in it. Consider the evidence:

This witches' brew of worry could persist for weeks and probably months in low- or mid-level crisis mode until a financial panic sets it off on the boil. That panic could come from the Greek elections, the U.S. "fiscal cliff" problems, or any kind of unexpected financial disaster.

No wonder JP Morgan is standing by its bet. It's hard to argue right now that the bank was totally wrong.